Fort Wayne Community Schools holds 5th IgnitED conference; helping teachers implement technology

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — For just over seven hours, more than 600 teachers went to Northrop High School on Wednesday for the 5th annual FWCS IgnitED conference.

It’s a technology-based educational conferences for teachers within FWCS and around northeast Indiana.

Sarah McClure, the Manager of Learning Technology for FWCS, told WANE 15 the biggest goal is to help educators learn how to blend their curriculum and technology together.

“It’s been amazing to see [the conference] grow over the last five years. We’ve been very grateful to the IDOE for a grant that we have received to help fund this, but we also get sponsorships that allow it to become what it has become and put on for this many educators in the northeast Indiana area,” McClure said.

The conference featured 80 different breakout sessions and sessions from keynote speaker Thomas Murray — an educator, author, speaker and Director of Innovation for Future Ready Schools.

Other speakers included Nadine Gilkison who is the Technology Integration Supervisor at Franklin Township Community School Corporation and Jon Corippo, who helped create EduProtocols, which are instructional frameworks designed to engage students in learning through critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity.

Educators at the conference were able to learn from other teachers, people outside of education, and also visit vendor booths.

Hands-on experience with classroom tools related to STEM and a lot of conversations about how to implement AI were two big things happening as well.

McClure told WANE 15 that technology is always evolving so teachers have to evolve with it so they’re able to put it to use in their classrooms in a way that it will positively impact learning for students.

“During our keynote, we showed a video from 1994 of ‘what is the internet,’ and now we have AI where students can simply type in and get a response, and so it’s learning how to use that in an effective way in order to enhance our education,” she explained.

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